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Okonomiyaki Recipe お好み焼き

Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) is a Japanese pancake made of batter mixed with shredded cabbage and a variety of ingredients. After okonomiyaki is cooked, it is t is topped with okonomi sauce, Japanese mayonnaise, katsuobushi, and aonori. Okonomiyaki originated from the Osaka and Hiroshima areas (West) of Japan.

Okonomi means “what you like” and yaki means “grilled.” Regardless of the region and style, the main ingredients is always cabbage. The rest is up to you: you can make okonomiyaki with “what you like.” It is also sometimes referred in English as “Japanese Pizza”. My recipe below is for making simple okonomiyaki, and you can definitely make your own okonomiyaki recipe by adding other ingredients like shrimp, noodles, eggs, etc. In fact, my mom used to put many other kinds of vegetables (carrots and onions etc) when she made it at home. I was surprised to learn that a typical ononomiyaki at okonomiyaki restaurants only includes cabbage!

Okonomiyaki restaurants have tables that teppan (Japanese iron griddle) is built-in. The server brings out the raw ingredients and offers to cook okonomiyaki for you. If you already know how to cook, you can do on your own. Whenever I visit Osaka, one of my must eat food is to make a quick stop at okonomiyaki restaurants.

At home, we usually use a Japanese electric griddle to make several medium-size okonomiyaki at one time. It’s fun to make with family and friends.

This particular recipe is from my friend Hiroko who’s originally from Hiroshima. She cooked this delicious okonomiyaki two years ago when she visited us from Los Angeles and we were really impressed and asked her for the recipe. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do!

Meanwhile, remove the core of the cabbage and finely dice the cabbage (finer the better).

Take out the batter from the fridge and prepare the rest of ingredients on the kitchen counter.

In the bowl, add eggs, Tenkasu, and Pickled Ginger, and mix well. Then add squid and mix again.

Stir in the cabbage.

In a non-stick frying pan heat oil on medium to medium high heat. Scoop one ladle of batter and place on the pan. Do not flatten the mixture because it will easily break when you turn it over.

Place 2-3 sliced pork belly on top of Okonomiyaki and cook covered for 5 minutes.

When the bottom side is nicely browned, turn it over and cook covered for another 5 minutes.

Turn over one more time and cook uncovered for 2 minutes. Transfer to a plate.

Apply Okonomi Sauce and Japanese mayonnaise, and sprinkle katsuobushi. You can also put dried green seaweed, green onions and pickled red ginger on top for garnish.

If you have a Japanese griddle (We call it “Hot Plate”) with a lid, you can cook several Okonomiyaki at once!

Notes

Okonomiyaki freezes well. Once it cools down (no toppings or sauce), wrap each okonomiyaki in aluminum foil and put it in a Ziploc bag. When you want to eat it, defrost first and put it in a toaster oven to warm it up. It's a great quick lunch option!

Recipe by Namiko Chen of Just One Cookbook. All images and content on this site are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without my permission. If you’d like to share this recipe on your site, please re-write the recipe and link to this post as the original source. Thank you.

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Thank you Nami. This and th Ginger pork were the first dishes I cooked from JOC. It was okonomi so I used shrimp. Both were delicious and your post is very detailed and so easy to follow! I am glad that JOC will help to teach me a lot more about Japanese cooking. The toppings on the Okonomiyaki all complimented so well. Alisa really enjoyed it. Oh, and the Nagaimo is such cool stuff! Is it used often to thicken things? It seemed almost like glue. Duomo arigato gozaimasu!

Hi Todd! Oh I’m so happy to hear you made Okonomiyaki & Ginger Pork! Yaayyy! This is the happiest moment when I learn someone cooked my food and liked it. Thank you for taking your time to give me your feedback! Okonomiyaki is my favorite food… I love mayo & okonomi (tonkatsu) sauce mix. Glad Alisa liked it too. =) We sometimes use Nagaimo for “thickening” but we eat it as ingredients too. It’s so expensive here, so I only buy it for Okonomiyaki. You made my day!

OH!! My favorite okonomiyaki. You make it so easy. I made it once (maybe a few months ago) with yakisoba noodles. They were horrible, tasted and looked like yakisoba with an egg 555. It was hard. I need more practice. Maybe I will give another try with your recipe.

Hi Nami – I found your blog through Biren and then started exploring. So glad you have a recipe for okonomiyaki as it is the one obsession I brought back with me from Japan! Have never made it myself (there’s a restaurant in London where I go for my fix every now and then) but with your recipe in hand, I might be brave enough.

Makati (Philippines) has this in Little Tokyo and it was sooo good! Would love to make this and I’ll write the names of those yams in Chinese to look for it in the market Was wondering though, how to make the okonomi sauce? Thanks for posting this!!! would this be similar to the batter of Takoyaki balls? 😀 I really really like those too!! 😀

Nami, ok this just keeps getting spooky! 😛 I was just writing about okonomiyaki this morning! We went to a Japanese restaurant where the owners are from Hiroshima and I was hoping to try a Hiroshima okonomiyaki but alas they discontinued it. But now I can try it-thank you Nami and Hiroko! 😀

I saw pre-packed okonomiyaki powder in the supermarket. Is it a good alternative? I do not have a griddle pan so will making it one at a time. Will the okonomiyaki still taste good after it has cooled down? Thanks.

Hi Ju! I just received email about your comment today – but now I look at the date and it says Feb 7… I have never had this issue before, but I apologize for my late response.

Yes, you can use those packaged one. You can make one at a time on a frying pan (just like regular pancakes – but it takes a little longer to cook than a pancake). It’s best to be eaten right after cooking. If there is oven/microwave available I would recommend to reheat it. Hope this helps!

Hi Karen! If you cannot find it, just omit it, instead of adding substitute. When nagaimo is grated, it is very slimy and that is good for batter. But I don’t think there is any good substitute for it. But when/if you find it, please try making okonomiyaki!

I just found your site, and I love it! My Japanese grandmother always made such wonderful food, so I’m always on the look-out for delicious and easy to make, Japanese recipes. Okonomiyaki is one of my favorites! I can’t wait to try this!

Thank you so much for this recipe! I was actually planning to go with a recipe from another site, but as we walked to the store checkout my husband pointed and said “What’s that!” It was Nagaimo, which I had’nt even put on my shopping list! Now that I had the secret ingredient, I needed a new recipe that used it and found yours. This is SO GOOD. I omitted the bacon (sad, I know) and subbed shrimp for the squid (will definitely try squid next time) and it still turned out so so tasty. Can’t wait to try more of your recipes now!

Hi Beth! Thank you so much for writing! I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed this Okonomiyaki recipe! Yay! Nagaimo is very important to get that texture of okonomiyaki (otherwise the batter is too flat). I’m glad you found it as I assume a lot of people won’t be able to find it unless they have a Japanese grocery stores… Okonomiyaki can be any ingredients. Try adding your favorite ingredients. I like adding mochi in mine. Hope you enjoy other recipes from my blog too. Thank you for your feedback!

Hi Nami, thank you for this recipe! I enjoyed Okonomiyaki when in I was in Osaka and I wanted to be able to have it a home. This came out just right! I was able to substitute the nagaimo with kamoteng kahoy. It’s a root crop found here in the Philippines and it came out very well. Thank you!

I hope you and your family are enjoying your visit to Japan and your home renovation goes well and is completed in a timely manner.

I have enjoyed preparing quite few of you recipes so far on your blog and look forward to enjoying many more as time permits.

I find your instructions to be very clear to follow and your excellent photographs are a great bonus.

I have wanted to make Okonomiyaki for quite a few years since I have enjoyed it many times in Japan and your great blog has inspired me to give it a try. I even bought a new Zojirushi rectangular griddle today so that I can make lots at one time when we have company.

Our friends who own a Japanese sushi restaurant here in Toronto Canada coincidently requested it last night. I made them your Sukiyaki last time they we over for diner and they loved it so I’m sure this dish will also be a success.

So my question is how can I print your photographs and instruction paragraphs with the recipe without all the other on screen background graphics as the page reformats when I try to print it.

Hi Ken! Thank you so much for your well wishes. We’re having a great time in Japan and will miss every moment once we go back to California… and the kitchen won’t be ready! Ahhh! >_< Anyhow, thank you so much for trying my recipes! Glad to hear my instructions are clear. I sometimes feel my instructions are too long, but I feel it’s nice to have extra tips in case for those who are not familiar with the process. So thank you for your kind feedback.

You will enjoy the griddle pan! I use it all the time to make Okonomiyaki and pancakes. I’m sure new ones are nicer… mine is probably 20 years old!

Happy to hear your friend enjoyed the sukiyaki recipe!

Regarding the print option. I tested for a while to see which print option my readers like. 1) instructions with pictures or 2) instructions without pictures.

When I turn on images to be included to the recipe, a lot of people complained that it’s waste of ink… therefore I had decided to turn off the image option. Hence, you will only see the words when you print out.

These days a lot of people use iPad and tablets so they don’t print out – so I thought it’s okay to keep print option the way it is (just words only).

I am sorry my recipe doesn’t include the images. Most of my recipes are LONG and each step has an image. It can easily be 2-3 pages when you print out…

What you could do is to highlight the recipe area (including pictures) and paste into Word. Then you can print it out without ads etc. It’s an extra step, but that’s the only way to show instructions and pictures.